Mike Simpson

Thank you, and I apologize for having to cut anybody off, we have got to do the five minute time limit.

The challenge is this. And I am sure you know this and you have probably all heard of it before.

It is very expensive to try to save those structures once a fire starts out there.

I consider these hearings just a start of an ongoing dialogue.

American Indian and Alaska Native programs shall continue to be a priority for this Subcommittee.

I just want to tell you I am very grateful, and I am proud of this Committee

The investment that the tribes are making far, far exceeds anything the Federal Government is doing

For us to listen through these hearings and not feel compelled to do all that we can try and help would be unconscionable.

This Committee demands an annual shortfall report from the agencies showing exactly how they have spent their money.

In 2015, they have gotten with the program. They were not last year but they are this year.

Public land is not the same as Indian land

Controlling your resources is controlling your destiny

What I agree with is that like the Coalition of Large Tribes and all the tribes that are getting together, like you said, the three tribes that are coming together with us that we are willing to give our expertise developing it and getting…

It should not be treated routinely the way any other application coming in because it is literally life and death services to tribal nations in many cases.

Get it out of the grant cycle, get it into permanent recurring funding for the Indian Health Service.

It is important when money comes back to the agencies it does not go to the Treasury.

Thank you for very much for your leadership. I know it was not easy.

Well, I think the preferred way would be of the tribes themselves wanted to take over the functions and had the expertise.

Indian health should have never been subjected to that. Actually, everybody admits that now.

We should never have to. In the Indian Health Service, we are the ones who provide care just as the veterans do.

We need some help across the rotunda. We are not doing it fast enough, but it is even slowed down when both the Administration and the Senate don't put any money in for school construction, and it is frustrating the heck out of me.

You just said that violence against women was 10 times higher.

And it is because we all work together. The whole state works together on this.

It is a big, big state. But thank you all for being here today.

Personally, being from Idaho, Alaska is the one state I have never been to, one of the two or three, which is kind of surprising.